This past year I've had a growing resolve to end the sale of physical goods in the NG store. This will likely happen in early 2014 so if you've ever wanted to buy a Tankman or one of the remaining shirts, this would be a good time to do so!

The staff is smaller than it used to be and shipping orders / providing customer service is a daily time-drain. We'll continue to use the store for digital purchases such as the Supporter Upgrade but the "store" button will likely be removed from the navbar and instead we'll promote the Supporter Upgrade near ads.

When the time comes to update the navbar, we may also remove the "Channels" button, instead promoting channels and series pages within the individual content hubs for games, movies, audio and art. That will bring our navbar down to five items, making things just a little less complicated looking when you glance at the site.

I ultimately want to remove the rollover dropdown menus from the navbar but we need to work out a few more things to be sure no pages get lost in the shuffle.

It's hard to put a positive spin on the store closing down but we have a lot of great stuff coming and simplifications to the site will help us spend time on the things we want to be focused on. But yeah, sorry for the downer.

In other news, thank you everyone who participated in Madness Day this year! Winners are coming up next.

I've never had any idea about where Newgrounds gets money from in order to keep running. It turns out it had infinite money at first, and now it's slowly coming to 0, and there should be a way to somehow slow it down.

I have a soft spot for NG. and it's sad to see things are going this way. Honestly, NG just hasn't been able to compete in a competitive space. Other competing sites have either been acquired, or have moved onto other areas of business like publishing. It's complicated, but I feel like NG doesn't really know what it is anymore. There is too much holding onto days gone by rather than trying to innovate or do something new and different. A lot of people that jive with these old things like Pico day or Madness day are grown up or gone. I'm skeptical that this stuff brings any decent traffic. Just adding support for HTML5 games, and videos won't cut it either I don't think. That's just my personal perspective from the outside looking in. Obviously the NG team works hard, and I am just a bystander that doesn't have a great grasp of the situation. So, ignore me. Regardless, I'll still always be lurking in the flash forums. :)

Another thing you can do is just have an outside provider do all the goods like Cafepress or Spreadshirt and just have those cover it for you. Better to see the focus be on games and the site instead of the merchandising!

At 9/25/13 03:10 PM, kkots wrote:
I've never had any idea about where Newgrounds gets money from in order to keep running. It turns out it had infinite money at first, and now it's slowly coming to 0, and there should be a way to somehow slow it down.

Really sad that the store is leaving us, I loved it, I bought quite a few products on it, want to get more, just cash is extremely tight. Understandable that it has to be dropped right now, I hope someday it makes a return though, love buying and supporting artists here at NG.

At 9/25/13 03:19 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote:
I have a soft spot for NG. and it's sad to see things are going this way. Honestly, NG just hasn't been able to compete in a competitive space. Other competing sites have either been acquired, or have moved onto other areas of business like publishing. It's complicated, but I feel like NG doesn't really know what it is anymore. There is too much holding onto days gone by rather than trying to innovate or do something new and different. A lot of people that jive with these old things like Pico day or Madness day are grown up or gone. I'm skeptical that this stuff brings any decent traffic. Just adding support for HTML5 games, and videos won't cut it either I don't think. That's just my personal perspective from the outside looking in. Obviously the NG team works hard, and I am just a bystander that doesn't have a great grasp of the situation. So, ignore me. Regardless, I'll still always be lurking in the flash forums. :)

The accumulation of features has been a growing weight, which is why doing things like eliminating the store and some of the event days can ultimately be good, if we can spend our hours on new things instead of maintaining old things that people aren't really that interested in anymore.

The publishing angle has been tempting but I've always felt awkward about it because I like to find ways to help people make and publish things on their own, without giving a chunk to a publisher. There are still lots of useful publishers doing useful things for devsm but it's nice for a dev to be able to make it without one and truly be in control of their destiny.

Alternatively I do wonder about the on-line game sales angle, because I talk to devs with great games that aren't on Steam. I imagine as soon as we address something like that, so will Steam, and when you look at stuff like today's announcement of the steambox beta, you know you're up against something pretty damn awesome and hard to compete with.

At 9/25/13 03:36 PM, TomFulp wrote:
Alternatively I do wonder about the on-line game sales angle, because I talk to devs with great games that aren't on Steam. I imagine as soon as we address something like that, so will Steam, and when you look at stuff like today's announcement of the steambox beta, you know you're up against something pretty damn awesome and hard to compete with.

If you mean publishers buying the rights to games, chris from fgl might have suggestions on how to get that going, or perhaps join forces. If you mean in-app purchases with some kind of ng ca$h, that would be...different.

I was on the fence about buying some ng merch, so I guess there's my answer. Can I use my ng revenue sitting around to buy stuff, or is that off-limits until I get to whatever the threshold is?

Well.. this is kind of a downer. I couldn't choose between a shirt or another supporter badge for 2013 until now, though. The leftover merch: would you be saving those as consolation prizes for something or just giving them away?

In any case, I'm sure you guys know what you're doing. I'm not too worried.

"Trolls are people who long ago gave up the will to live worthwhile lives, and now dedicate themselves to tormenting others, in attempts to drag victims down to their level."

YOU HEARD IT LADIES AND GENTS! STEP RIGHT UP, ONE TIME ONLY, CLOSING SALE! BUY BUY BUY! PUT YOUR MONEY INTO YOUR COMPUTER FOR A GOOD TIME!

Thanks for getting the Clabtrap album in there Tom! The store has really been helpful, I would not have been able to distribute these without it. I will be sad to see it go, but if it's a time-sucking-hole I understand. Godspeed!

At 9/25/13 04:00 PM, KaDoYuu wrote:
Well.. this is kind of a downer. I couldn't choose between a shirt or another supporter badge for 2013 until now, though. The leftover merch: would you be saving those as consolation prizes for something or just giving them away?

I have always wanted to buy a Tank man figure, and now is my only chance.
It's feels kinda weird seeing the store go, but i guess it makes sense to remove it. Most people have already purchased the merchandise they want. (Except me of course XD.)
So what's the point in even having it.

At 9/25/13 03:10 PM, kkots wrote:
I've never had any idea about where Newgrounds gets money from in order to keep running. It turns out it had infinite money at first, and now it's slowly coming to 0, and there should be a way to somehow slow it down.